LaoBlog

SailfishOS revealed itself as a nice surprise to me . I already had seen it on an Xperia before, therefore I already have had a first impact with the GUI. I installed it on a microSD. Til a year ago, in the installer for the Pinephone there was an annoying bug which prevented the install script to install the OS (both microSd & flash mem), therefore I only could test it a bit as a live system. Now fortunately the installer works, and also lets you encrypt your FS during the installation process, which is very important for me. On the Pinephone, Sailfish suffers some major issues. First at all, the audio for the calls. In the past it wasn't working, now it works, but the voice sounds very "metallic"... On the other side, when somebody calls, I always get it (well sometimes the volume of the ringtone is almost inaudible, although I set it to a higher volume, when I reboot the phone it's low again). I recived some SMS, but when I try to send a message, it seems that it doesn't work... I suspect some issue when I rely on 4g network, when it falls back to 2g calls look more stable and maybe also the SMS could work. Further investigations needed.

The camera doesn't work yet.

The bluetooth works, although sometimes finding another device seems to take a long time and disconnecting/reconnecting the BT.

Wifi works and is quite stable, but sometimes after suspension it doesn't reconnect to the network. Moreover when you turn it on, although the desired network is already memorized in the phone, it doesn't connect. Turn it off, then on some times, then it works again.

GPS doesn't work yet.

I sometimes experimented a freeze when disconnecting the usb cable after charging the phone, but nothing else.

But now let's talk about the good news

SalifishOS actually shows the best performance for battery consumption .Resuming from suspend usually is fast, 1 or 2 seconds after clicking the power button. The battery in stand by lasts about 24 hours.

There's a script for updating the OS without Jolla account (by the way, you'l be asked to create it during the installation process, but don't need it if you don't want: only if you want to access the Jolla store)

Custom ringtones. Yes! You can use your own ringtone for calls, notifications, sms, etc. SailfishOS also offers the possibillity to download themes with a good level of customization.

I suggest you to install Storeman, an app store with more apps available respect to the default ChumGUI. Among the others, an UPNP player (but can't find my own server), apps for Telegram, Signal, Mastodon, XMPP. The default email client works with my own IMAP server. Moreover you can syncronize the default Calendar app with your caldav server. Also the contacts of the phone with your carddav server (for reference, I use Radicale).

Already said about the GPS, I can't get the signal. GPSInfo from Storeman is an app to check the gps signal. Anyway, there are few wannabe apps as navigator. So far Pure Maps looks the best choice. Interesting looks modRana too, similar to the old, glorious Navit.

Last, SouBirdIME is an input method app (from Storeman) which allows you to type in Chinese Hanyu PinYin, which I personally use. It is probably the only OS for PinePhone with such possibility, so far.